


My Love is Like a Coin

by Xazz



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Coin, Jewelry, M/M, Mermaids, coins, dark mermaids, man eater, merman, pearls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-10
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-09 13:27:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xazz/pseuds/Xazz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After nearly drowning Altair is rescued by a mermaid, he can't stop thinking about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He couldn’t swim. He was also five years old so it was understandable that he couldn’t swim. Altair had been down at the docks with his parents, his father was talking with a captain of a ship while his mother bought their dinner of fish for the night, and he’d been looking over the side because he could see fish. His papa had said not to get underfoot of the adults while he talked with the captain, so he stood out of the way on the dock. He’d quickly been captivated by some of the brightly colored fish that swam under the dock and looked no bigger then his palm. They were white with thick, vertical, black, stripes on it’s body. And there were some silver ones too.

Then someone had bumped into him from behind. Someone wasn’t looking where they were going and he went head over feet into the ocean with a cry and a splash. He grabbed for air but couldn’t find any and his first (stupid) instinct was to cry out. He inhaled sea water and immediately tried to cough, which just making him swallow more water.

For a second he managed to breach the surface and there was crowd of people looking down at him and he could see his father’s face. “Altair!” he heard him yell and could see his reaching hand through the film of water over his eyes. But then he went under again and he heard someone yell again, probably his father, probably his name.

He couldn’t breathe and couldn’t swim and he was sinking, his lungs full of water, when something suddenly _grabbed him_ from beneath. In a daze, half drowned, he thought he saw a black face with small white marks on the cheeks, and black eyes. With one arm around his waist they opened their mouth and it was filled with a million sharp, pointed, teeth, and they pressed against his mouth and inhaled. 

He had the strange sensation of having the water sucked out of his lungs and when they were empty he felt like he was going to die because he _really_ couldn’t breathe. But then his head was above the surface and he was coughing and gasping and crying. 

 “Altair!” he heard his papa cry and he was moving through the water without moving himself and then two strong arms were lifting him up out of the water and he was still crying. There were a lot of people yelling and talking all at once and he just clung to his papa’s chest. He coughed again and looked at the water under the dock, there was nothing there, and then he saw a long, black shadow flash through the water and out of sight.

—

Altair had been coming to the docks every day for the past ten years. Every day, without fail, as close to the same time as he could, usually before dinner, when the docks were quieter. He fingered the coin he normally would drop into the water, or sometimes a pearl. His father ran a jewelry store, he was his apprentice, and sometimes pearls got cracked during the grinding or cleaning process. They were _still good pearls_ , they just couldn’t be used for the quality of work his father worked at. He was a master and known for his quality. Nothing but perfection would do. 

The days he couldn’t get pearls he used coins. All the stories said mermaids liked shiny things, so they were always shiny coins. And it was also said they liked pearls and decorated everything with them, so when he could; pearls, since mermaids probably had no use for coins. That was if mermaids were even real. They were just stories, mostly legends. Reports of them were infrequent to non existent. Still, Altair knew. 

He knew because he’d been saved by one when he’d fallen off these docks ten years ago. He’d since learned how to swim, to help his father dive for pearls, and against his father’s orders even swam in the harbor. That was dangerous though since a boat could run over him. He still did though, usually to check just below where he was standing now (the spot where he’d fallen a decade ago) to see if his coins or pearls were there. They never were. All he ever found was a silty bottom, even when he dug into the muck. No coins. No pearls. Ever. Even when he checked within the span of a few hours. Nothing.

He pocketed the coin and sat on the wooden dock. “I know you’re there,” he said to the dark harbor water. “Maybe you can even understand me, I don’t know. I hope you can. I wanted to say thanks… again,” this wasn’t the first time he’d sat here on the docks and seemingly talked to no one. It was why he came later in the day, when not so many people were around, so they wouldn’t stare at him and wonder what Umar’s son was doing there talking to himself like a lunatic. His family had a reputation after all. “And thought you might like something else, not a coin or a pearl. I bet you have a lot of the latter, nicer ones then I leave you, and more useless coins then you know what to do with.”

With that he pulled out a ring. He’d made it out of silver because it didn’t tarnish easily. It was just from some old coins they had around the house, ones that were out of date and would be melted down at the bank anyway. He’d melted them and turned them into wires and then braided them and made a loop that could fit his index finger. He was just sort of guessing at the diameter, wasn’t like he could _ask them_ after all. He felt kinda dumb doing this but before he could regret it he dropped it in the water. “Hope it fits,” he said as it hit the water.

He waited, he wasn’t exactly sure _what_ he was waiting for, but he was waiting anyway. Nothing happened and he had to get going. His mother would start to get worried about him if he wasn’t home for dinner. “Well that was dumb,” he muttered to himself and sighed, rubbing his face. 

When he pulled his hand away he almost fell off the dock in surprise. In front of him, with just the top of their head above water, was a mermaid. No. Not just a mermaid. _His_ mermaid. The one with black skin and he could just make out the markings on their cheeks. He stared at them, surprised at how different they looked compared to his memory. But then that memory was ten years old and tainted by panic, but still. They were bald and he thought they’d been younger, but no, they looked like a man in his mid twenties. And his eyes were black. The black like a shark’s were black, and made him swallow. Those were the eyes of things that _were not_ _friendly_.

“Hello,” he said, voice cracking. They stared at him. “Uh…” awkward much.

Then they lifted their head fully out of the water, “You’re not scared,” he said and Altair was struck by his voice. It was so… inhuman. Long and low and washed out, how a voice could be washed out he didn’t know, but theirs was. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end. He shook his head. “You should be,” they said.

He furrowed his brow, “That seems silly to be afraid of the person who saved me,” he said.

“I was going to eat you,” and he paled, because they said it so bluntly.

“You… what?”

“I. Was. Going. To. Eat. You,” he said, staring at Altair. He swallowed.

“Why didn’t you?”

The mermaid blinked, “I don’t know,” he seemed confused by himself.

“You… eat people?” he swallowed.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why do you eat cows?”

“Because they… oh,” and he was sure he was deathly white.

The mermaid held up the braided silver ring to examine it and look at Altair through the loop. Then he took off a necklace Altair hadn’t seen because it was under water, and put the ring through it. He saw, to his surprise, that the necklace was _made_ of coins with a hole drilled through the top. All the coins he’d brought. The ring clattered against the coins and then vanished under the water. The mermaid looked at him with his alien black eyes and grinned, his mouth was full of teeth like needles, twice as many as a human had in their mouth. “Do I scare you now?” he asked, still smiling.

“A bit,” he confessed.

“Good,” and then he vanished under the water.

Altair skipped going to the docks for an entire week before going back.

—

He saw the mermaid a few more times after that. Never like the first time though. A dark shadow in the water, or a splash that was too big to be a fish, or a fin rising up from the harbor briefly. Never anything much, and not often, but he went back, every day, because he wanted to see. He usually brought coins now, because he didn’t crack pearls anymore since he was older. He brought lots of different ones. Ones from other cities and other countries when he could, ones that were different values and weighed different amounts. Sometimes he brought other tokens, a ring, or a pendant he could wear on his necklace. Small things his father wouldn’t notice he made and wouldn’t ask where they went.

One day he went to the dock closer to dark then not. There was no one around and he thought he saw something at his usual spot. He realized that he _did_ see something. He bent down and picked it up. It was a necklace made entirely out of raw black pearls, each pearl carved with geometric and organic designs, and at the middle was a piece of flat, white, rock with a jelly fish carved on it. He smiled to himself and put it on. He’d been coming here almost fifteen years and this was the first time he’d ever gotten something in return from his mermaid.

He dropped a big gold coin into the water, he’d brought a shiny bronze one to do so, but he decided to drop the gold one in instead. He’d never given the mermaid gold before. His father would be so angry with him when he had to say he ‘lost’ it. Worth it. Then he said his thanks, though got no response, and left, tucking his new necklace under his shirt as he went.

—

He turned the coin over and over again in his fingers as he sat on the docks. He was hoping his mermaid came today. Today would, potentially, be the last day he’d ever come here. He was going to marry someone in another city, one inland. The girl was nice, he’d met her once or twice, and her father was friends with his father, though had nowhere near the reputation. His father made jewelry for kings and nobles. Her father made them for the wealthy merchants and lower nobles. But the old men were friends, and Altair was almost twenty-five. He needed to get married.

“Please be here, I want to see you,” he said, squeezing his eyes closed as he gripped the coin, and then dropped the coin into the water. He opened his eyes, confused, when he didn’t hear a splash. Instead his mermaid was there, hand in a fist around the coin, having caught it before it hit the water. He smiled. “You’re here,” he said. They just looked at him with their black eyes. “I… came to say goodbye,” he swallowed.

“Goodbye?” they asked and like the first time their voice made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

“I’m leaving, to get married.”

“What is married?”

“Uhm… well,” he said awkwardly. “It’s where a man and a woman live together, I suppose, with a promise to not live with other men or women.”

The mermaid cocked his head at him, “That’s dumb,” he said and Altair snorted.

“But… yeah,” he said awkwardly. “I came to say goodbye, because I won’t be able to come here anymore.”

“Ever?” he asked, and it sounded like he was disappointed.

“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “I might come back, my parents are still here,” he shrugged. The mermaid looked at the coin in his hand and then tugged at something below the water line, something he couldn’t see. He didn’t wear a necklace made of coins anymore, he was sort of upset by that actually. Then he stared at what his mermaid pulled from the water. It was a long string, maybe as long as Altair was tall, of coins. They coiled the coins around his wrist before tugging it off and offering it to him. “What? No, those are yours,” he protested.

“I’ll come back for them,” his mermaid said. “Just be sure to come give them to me.” Altair swallowed and nodded before taking the great string of coins. Twenty years worth of coins. A life time worth of coins. He knew they _all_ couldn’t be here. Some would have corroded or fallen off at some point. But the string was still impressive. Then the mermaid pulled out the big gold coin Altair had given him once, it was on a thong along with the rings Altair had made, the string wrapped around the coin instead of through it, “I’ll keep these,” and with one hand he pierced the soft silver coin he’d brought today with a finger ending in a claw and put it on the string with the rings and gold coin. Then he put them back under water, seeming to wrap it around something below him.

“Okay,” Altair said.

His mermaid smiled, all teeth like before, but it was a nice smile this time. “I’ll see you later,” and then he vanished under the water, just like he had the last time.

—

The docks had changed since the last time he’d been there. Even the last time he’d been there the docks had been old and crumbling. A new jetty had been added to his usual spot now, and all the wood new, though still a bit old. It had been five years since he’d been here, but his feet remembered the way, even if his spot was gone now. The long string of coins was in his bag at his side along with several pieces for his master work he’d come to show his father, so finally he could get his master’s chain.

It might have just been an excuse to come back here. His wife was pregnant with their second child, but he’d spent _twenty years_ coming to this spot. He’d have been lying if he said he didn’t think about his mermaid during that time, or while he was away, because he did.

He stood in front of the water and pulled out the long string of coins. He’d since restrung it on wire, and made it a double string, and sealed it, so it’d last longer, even in the salt water. He’d taken good care of it over the years, and hadn’t told anyone about it, though his wife had asked. Altair didn’t want to tell her, since mermaids weren’t real. Not _really_.

He stood on the dock for a long time, till it got dark and the harbor master had someone light the lamps. If he dropped this into the water and _they weren’t there_ what was he going to do? He rubbed his beard with a sigh before deciding he just had to do it. He had to give it back, like he’d promised. Altair held the string out over the water to let them drop.

A hand suddenly lashed out and caught his wrist before he could drop them. “The hell?” he started, nearly dropping them anyway, and turned to who had grabbed him. “Who are you?” he asked the man who’d stopped him.

“I thought I’d save you the trouble is all,” they said and he felt his face go slack. “Thanks for keeping them safe,” he said, and grinned at him a little and he saw a hint of teeth, long and thin and pointed. _His mermaid_. “Surprised to see me?” he asked.

Altair just blinked stupidly at him, “You can do that?” was the first thing out of his mouth.

“I can do a lot of things,” they said. “Including this,” and then Altair was being kissed and that was just… wonderful actually. “My name is Malik,” he said when they came up for air, “I was very lonely without you.”

Altair didn’t _even know what to say to that_. He’d basically just been confessed to _by a mermaid_. A mermaid who right now wasn’t a mermaid but a really attractive man with black hair and dark eyes (though nowhere as dark as when he was in the water) and skin the color of coffee and milk. “I have a wife,” he heard himself say dumbly and wow he sounded _really stupid_.

“So?” Malik asked him, “I don’t mind sharing,” and Altair flushed. “Just done go away again,” and he reached out and cupped Altair’s cheek. Altair closed his eyes. He could make this work. He would _make_ this work.


	2. Chapter 2

Everyone knew that the city was bad hunting grounds. And when Malik said everyone, he literally meant  _everyone,_ the fish were small and not much to see but muck and the underside of boats. Even he knew that, but he also knew that because the others didn't hunt here sometimes he could find interesting things here, which was why he was here today. There were a lot of people here too, and mermaids were wary of humans. With good reason! They'd drag you on land or kill you as soon as they'd look at you, or that was what everyone said at least.

Malik didn't like humans. Well, he liked to  _eat_  humans, but that was different. They were treats really, too dangerous to hunt, as mermaids were fragile, with thin bones, and while they were easily the deadliest predators in the sea they were like jellyfish, they had a sharp sting, but you find the soft spot and they were dead. Thankfully only the largest of sharks hunted mermaids, and only when they were alone. They were the only things that could hurt them, that and humans of course. So it was best to just stay away from them.

He felt it before he heard it, and he heard it before he saw it; a splash.

He twisted in the water, he was down in the muck, digging for things the humans had dropped, deep enough so no one would see him. A hundred feet away, floundering, he saw a human pup. They flailed in the water, grabbing at the surface. An easy meal, a delicious one too. Malik hadn't had human flesh in several months since a boat had sunk in a storm, and had not had child flesh in decades. They were usually kept safe from the deep water.

Not this one though. Above he could hear the adults, they'd act soon, he had to move faster. His long, eel-like, tail flashed and he shot through the water. He didn't rise too far up and grabbed the human pup by the ankle, pulling them down from the surface that was their life. He turned the child to him and saw their fear, saw their death. They were just a little thing, only about as big as his torso, with pretty amber eyes. They reminded him of his own brother, though he was much older now.

He decided he wasn't hungry now, instead he took the pup and pressed their mouths together. They were full of water and he just sucked it right out of them. The water was extra rich in oxygen from being in the pup's lungs. The stupid thing almost gasped for breath before he pushed him to the surface again. Malik heard them gasp and cough and someone yelled, above water, it sounded like a name, 'Altary'? Something like that. He kept his hand on the pup's stomach so he didn't sink and pushed him over to the dock.

The weight shifted and Malik jerked his hand back when the pup was lifted up out of the water. He sank down into the into the muck and silt, staring up at the surface where the dock cast a shadow on the water. The humans talked and Malik could hear the little human pup crying still, it reminded him of his brother again and instinct made him want to check, make sure he was okay, even though it was ridiculous! It was just a human. Just a little human though, and not all humans had to be food. He slowly neared the surface, looking up through the rippling and could see the wet little whelp in the arms of a much  _larger_  human who looked very capable of hurting Malik.

He frowned and knew it was time to leave. The docks weren't good hunting grounds anyway. He darted away from the scene, slipping under a boat as he went.

—

It was a special time. Malik didn't even pretend it wasn't. He'd learned, quite some time ago actually (he wasn't quite sure how long ago, it had been so many storm seasons they'd all sort of just blurred together now), that at this time was when he got a gift. Always something small, but he liked them, and the others he lived with were jealous of them.

He was sitting in the silt on the bottom of the harbor, waiting. Mermaids did not have a concept of time like humans did. For him it was simply 'day' and there was the passage of days and nights and moons and storm seasons and the reef seeding. But there was not 'hours' or 'after noon', which he knew humans used because humans talked and mermaids listened

Some humans were better then others. Like his human. His cute little pup of a human he'd saved from the water (though the thought to him was silly). Malik was glad he chose not to eat the pup that day, though now he couldn't remember  _why_  he chose not to. Mermaids didn't have long memories, they were rather short concerning most things unless they developed into habits, and coming to the docks had become a habit.

He looked up intently when a familiar shadow fell across the water. Malik pushed himself out of the muck, his long string of coins that coiled around his entire body pressing against his black flesh. This was why he came every day, why coming to the docks had become a habit. Because he got coins. Metal was rare to mermaids, but they were valuable, and beautiful and they were shiny and came in colors you didn't see in the water. Sometimes the pup, who didn't look much like a pup anymore, brought pearls. He was disappointed in the pearls, because  _he_  could get pearls. He wanted coins. Malik usually traded or gave the pearls away, he kept the coins for himself.

He settled just under the water, hidden by the dock. The pup, really he wasn't a pup he had to stop calling him that, suddenly said; "I know you're there." Malik had no illusions they were talking to him, They knew Malik was there, because his coins and pearls were always gone. "Maybe you can even understand me," simpleton.  _Of course_  Malik could understand him, it was he who wouldn't be able to understand Malik if he decided to speak his native tongue. "I hope you can. I wanted to say thanks… again," he smiled privately. He enjoyed the gratitude, since he didn't get it often "And I thought you might like something else, not a coin, or a pearl," he perked up at that. "I bet you have a lot of the latter, nicer ones then I leave you," no shit, "and more useless coins then you know what to do with," except Malik  _liked_  the coins. No one had coins like Malik had coins, even when ships sank and there  _were_  coins, never in the quantity Malik had. A mermaid might be lucky to get five at most, Malik had strings of them, wrapped around his neck and waist in a long line, and they jingled softly when he swam.

"Hope it fits," his human said and he looked up as whatever the not-coin-not-pearl hit the water with a soft 'thunk'. Malik waited until it had sunk down to him before plucking it out of the water. It was a ring of shiny silver, like some of his coins. It was beautiful, he'd never seen anything like it. He looked towards the surface and slowly rose up to it. Malik was well behaved, he knew how to show gratitude at the least.

His head breached the surface and for the first time in many storm seasons he saw his human properly without the distortion of the surface. He was older now. Funny. It hadn't been  _that_  many storm seasons for him to grow so much. Then he remembered mermaids grew slower then humans did. He had his hands covering his face, "Well that was dumb," they sighed, rubbing their face.

Malik lifted his head a bit more out of the water to hear better, it was painfully hard to hear out of the water and he felt deaf, and they pulled their hands from their face and stared. Malik stared back. Their eyes were  _bright_  amber and Malik didn't want to look away, it was like looking into eyes that held copper coins. He realized after a moment he was staring openly, but didn't check himself, as the not-a-pup seemed wary.

"Hello," their voice cracked, he said nothing, "Uh…"

Malik blinked at them, they hadn't run away. Usually, when people saw them, they ran, or attacked mermaids. They were scary to humans, monsters, man eaters. This one was neither, he seemed shy if anything. He lifted his head fully from the water to speak, "You're not scared," he was confused, but intrigued. He frowned a little when they shook their head, "You should be," just like Malik was slightly afraid of him. If they wanted to his human could call other humans and they could come with nets and spears and catch him, or kill him.

"That seems silly," he was pulled from his musing, "to be afraid of the person who saved you."

"I was going to eat you," he said matter of factly, seeing no reason to lie. He was. He was glad he hadn't now, but he _had_  been planning on eating the human all those storm seasons ago.

"You… what?" now they looked a bit scared.

"I. Was. Going. To. Eat. You," he said bluntly, he didn't have what humans called tact, he didn't even know what the word was. Mermaids were blunt, to the point, and didn't lie. They had no reason to lie.

"Why didn't you?" his human asked softly.

"I don't know," he confessed, he'd forgotten.

"You… eat people?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Malik almost rolled his eyes, "Why do you eat cows?" honestly. Maybe his human was stupider then he thought.

"Because they… oh," okay not  _that_  stupid. He just had to have it spelled out for him. Typical.

With a slight roll of his eyes Malik looked away from his human, he needed to get going, someone else was going to see him, someone he didn't  _want_  to see him. He looked at the ring in his palm under the water, he didn't want to lose this, it was special. He reached back and undid the clasp on his necklace, fitting the ring on it, he'd do something else with it later. The human was still staring at him, stunned and now with an entire edge to him. Malik smiled a wide, cheerful, smile, showing off a lot of his teeth, "Do I scare you now?" he asked the boy.

A moment's hesitation, "A bit," they said and swallowed.

"Good," yes, good. That was good, right? He tried not to think about it as he ducked under the water, he didn't  _want_ his human to be scared of him. Humans were already scared of them. He tried not to be upset or worried when his human didn't visit for several days, even when he stayed there for hours, his long tail coiled around one of the pillars, waiting.

—

Malik lay half coiled in his sea cave, working. The cave mouth opened at the top but his eye sight was sharp enough to see in color even at night time. It was a cave for one, and he'd lived here since his mother had driven him out of her hold so many, many,  _many_ , storm seasons ago. He'd lost count a long time ago of how many storm seasons had passed since then. But she'd pushed him away to have his brother, and even then he did not begrudge her, they were social creatures, but he'd been grown, it was time to move on.

He'd been working on this for a while, slowly. Black pearls were hard to find, he'd even gone up several rivers that emptied into the sea around where he lived to find them all. He'd missed a few days at the docks for them, but whatever. He was carefully etching each one with a knife made from whale bone, and being very careful about it. Not that he was exactly bad at this, he just couldn't screw up because it was a fucking black pearl and he wouldn't find one of these again for a while without opening hundreds of shellfish.

He was making a necklace. For his human. His tail twitched thinking about it and he repressed his smile. He was almost done though, all that was left was to string it and his brother to give him that pendant. Malik wasn't good at carving bone, or really delicate work honestly, but he did his best. He felt the change in the water of his cave and his brother was pushing himself through the hole at the top of the cave, blocking out the light.

His little brother fell through the water down to him. He was nearly full grown now, his tail nearly as long as Malik, his skin strangely pale next to Malik's night black skin, and his face was almost entirely white, which was strange for their kind. Usually it was just markings, like Malik had, on their face and arms. "Hello brother!" Kadar called cheerfully and let his tail curl against his.

"Hello," Malik said, "Do you have that pendant?"

Kadar sighed, "Yes," and he reached into the small woven pouch on his hip. "Here," he said pulling out a thin disc made of bone. Malik took it with a thanks. "You going to tell me who it's for yet?"

"No," no one knew about his human.  _No one_. Not even his little brother, who he told everything to. They were secret. He told himself it was so no one would steal his coins. He almost believed himself sometimes.

"Oh c'mon," Kadar whined and lay all over him, "Tell me," he whined.

"Kadar," Malik huffed and gave him a stern look. Kadar only pouted at him.

"Fine. Keep your stupid secrets. At least tell me they're pretty," because you would only make something as extravagant as the black pearl necklace Malik was making for someone you wanted to mate with. The thought was strange and he didn't dwell on it. He just wanted to give something back, since he knew coins had value to humans beyond simply being metal. His strings were expensive, even for humans.

Malik opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, but didn't say anything, closing it a final time and finished working on one of the last few beads.

"Malik?" Kadar prodded him.

He took a moment before saying, "They are."

Kadar just grinned and Malik kicked him out of his cave. He  _did not_  have time for this.

—

It was a normal day. Malik was swimming deep under the docks, weaving in and out of the pillars, heading for their spot. The one where he'd get his coin, where his pretty human was waiting. They weren't  _pretty_  really, but they had eyes like two of his copper coins, and a handsome face.

He surfaced out of sight, under the docks, if he looked up he could see his human's feet. "Please be here, I want to see you," they said and sounded upset. Malik frowned and when they dropped the coin, Malik grabbed it out of the air and moved a few feet out from under the dock. "You're here," they said when they opened their eyes, looking relieved. Malik blinked at him curiously. "I… came to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" he asked. Why would he be going away?

"I'm leaving, to get married."

His confusion expanded ten-fold, "What is married?"

"Uhm… well," he said awkwardly. "It's where a man and a woman live together, I suppose, with a promise to not live with other men or women."

Malik cocked his head at him, "That's dumb," his human snorted, it was a laugh, he knew that.

"But… yeah," he said awkwardly. "I came to say goodbye, because I won't be able to come here anymore."

"Ever?" he asked, disappointed, he didn't  _want_  his human to go away. They were  _his_.

"I don't know. I might come back, my parents are still here," he shrugged, helplessly.

Malik looked at him, then at the coin in his hand. The man came every day, unless he was sick, and always gave him a coin. If he left he'd have no reason to come back and see him, why would he want to after all? He'd be with someone else. That hurt a lot more then it should have. So he'd have to give the man a  _reason_  to come back. Malik could only think of one way on such short notice. He tugged at the long string of coins that he wrapped around his waist and tail and coiled it around his wrist loosely, before taking it off. The man would have to come back. He'd  _have_ to. He offered his string to them.

"What? No, those are yours," he tried to protest.

Malik wasn't having  _any_  of it. "I'll come back for them. Just be sure to come give them to me," he ordered and after a second the man nodded. He transferred the great string to him, the man kneeling on the dock to pick them out of his hand, briefly their hands touching. His human was very warm. He pulled his hand back quickly and fingered his new coin, he had to do something with it, plus there was his second, lesser, string. It was obvious they felt awkward taking the string from Malik, he pulled out his lesser string, the one with his gold coin, rings, and metal charms on it. "I'll keep these," and he saw him relax, just a but. He made a crude hole in the new coin and threaded it on the lesser string before securing it to his waist.

"Okay."

Malik smiled at him warmly, with his teeth, "I'll see you later," he promised and sank under the water. He waited until the man was gone before leaving.

—

The sun was amazingly hot. He was used to it now though. Before the water had always tempered the hot sun. But out in the air there was nothing like that. It was why he only came out of the water later in the day, when it wasn't so hot, and so he didn't burn and turn red as fire coral. He'd learned that hard way that the sun wasn't kind to his species.

He had place under the docks for clothes, because the first time people had stared at him when he'd wandered around mostly naked. Nothing fancy, just shorts, and a shirt, both he'd stolen off a clothes line.

Malik also came later in the day because that was  _their_  time. He came here a lot, almost every day. His brother asked him where he went, his friends asked too. He didn't tell them. What was he supposed to say? That, somehow, he'd fallen in love with a human? They'd think something was wrong with him, he didn't want that. There was nothing wrong with him, he just… had different tastes, that was all.

After pulling on his clothes he scrambled up onto the docks. Sailors moved about, people rushing around, but he wasn't in a rush, not really. He had sort of given up. It had been several storm seasons, and he hadn't seen them _once_. But he kept coming, because he still had some sort of hope, he still wanted to believe they'd come back. So he took his time to navigate the docks to where the new addition was, where he used to wait for them, under the water, and pluck coins out of the sea as they drifted down to the mud.

He practically avoided the spot. He didn't want to be let down again. Eventually he just sucked it up and went, by now the sun had just set, the sky turning as dark as his sea skin, and the humans lit lamps. He could see just fine though, especially the man standing on the docks in as close to what  _his_  spot was as humanly possible thanks to the new part of the dock. Malik frowned, he was going to shove that human into the water and eat them if they weren't who he thought they were.

Then he saw them hold their hand out and saw his string glitter in the lamp light. They were about to let go when he grabbed them, no need to go digging through the silt for it. "The hell!" they cried, turning to him. He had facial hair, that was funny. Malik wondered what it felt like. "Who are you?"

For a second his heart sank, then he remembered that  _of course_  they wouldn't know him. All he knew was his sea skin. "I thought I'd save you the trouble is all," hoping that would jog his memory. "Thanks for keeping them safe," he said with a slight grin and he tugged his long string from the man's hands. They stared at him, and he knew they got it. "Surprised to see me?"

"You can do that?" they asked, sounding confused and surprised and Malik thought it was cute.

"I can do a lot of things. Including this," he'd freely admit- to himself- about doing this. Because he'd missed his human. But kissing them for real was entirely different then what he thought it would be like, especially with facial hair, which tickled his sensitive skin. "My name is Malik," he said, because they never  _had_  been introduced, not eve. He almost didn't say, "I was very lonely without you," but he did, and was surprised by his own lack of brain to mouth filter.

They stared, shocked, and Malik just waited for an answer. He almost laughed at what they said, "I have a wife."

He grinned a little, "So? I don't mind sharing," he didn't, his kind shared everything, sometimes even including mates. He liked it when he blushed, Malik couldn't. Carefully he reached up and pressed his hand to the man's face, "Just don't go away again," he hoped he didn't sound as desperate and begging as he thought he did.

They just closed their eyes for a few moments, then he opened them. "Okay," he said. Malik smiled and kissed him again.


End file.
